The bumpy ride along the Ka­pur­bawdi fly­over has fi­nally eased as the au­thor­i­ties have filled al­most all pot­holes.

On Thursday, the Ma­ha­rash­tra State Road De­vel­op­ment Corporation (MSRDC) sent an­other no­tice to the con­trac­tor, ask­ing it to main­tain the road and ease com­muters’ woes or face the con­se­quences.

An MSRDC of­fi­cial, re­quest­ing anonymity, said, “The con­trac­tor him­self filled the pot­holes. How­ever, the fill­ing is tem­po­rary and the bi­tu­men will flow off if there is heavy rain. We have thus asked him to keep on reg­u­larly fill­ing the pot­holes on this fly­over.”

“We sent him an­other no­tice say­ing if com­muters face prob­lems on this fly­over dur­ing the mon­soon, he will have to face the con­se­quences,” he said.

Hin­dus­tan Times had re­ported about the traf­fic con­ges­tion and the bumpy ride along the Ka­pur­bawdi fly­over ow­ing to the many pot­holes which had cropped up dur­ing rains.

The MSRDC had served no­tice to the con­trac­tor ask­ing him to fill the pot­holes or they will get it filled from some other con­trac­tor and the money would be de­ducted from his bills. The of­fi­cial said the con­trac­tor would be black­listed if the road de­te­ri­o­rates. The MSRDC claimed that there was no con­ges­tion on the fly­over.

How­ever, the rough ride on Pot­holes on Ka­pur­bawdi fly­over have been filled, giv­ing com­muters a smooth ride.

Rutu Park fly­over will con­tinue. “The road can be re­paired only if we get a dry spell or else the bi­tu­men will wash off with the rain wa­ter,” he added.

The last of the five arms of the Ka­pur­bawdi fly­over was opened for the pub­lic in Au­gust last year. Barely a year later, the fly­over from Ghod­bun­der to Mum­bai de­vel­oped craters.

The traf­fic go­ing to­wards Nashik and Mum­bai from Ghod­bun­der dur­ing the peak hours is blocked on this fi­nal arm since it started rain­ing last week.

POT­HOLE FILL­ING NOT UP TO MARK: RES­I­DENTS

While the Thane Mu­nic­i­pal Corporation claims to have filled 1000 square feet of pot­holes, the work is not up to the mark.

The corporation has filled the pot­holes on some part of the road while the re­main­ing pot­holes on the same roads are still not re­paired.

Ratan Awsar­mol, city engi­neer of TMC said, “We have un­der­taken the pot­hole fill­ing at the Ma­ji­wada and Man­pada wards us­ing the jet­patcher ma­chine. We have filled around 1000 square feet of area. A sur­vey of num­ber of pot­holes across the city has also been un­der­taken.”

He said that the pot­holes at Ma­ji­wada, Balkum and Man­pada ar­eas have been filled.

“The ones at Kol­shet are still re­main­ing and we will start work on them the next cou­ple of days. The fill­ing work with jet­patcher is fast and the pot­holes will not reap­pear for a year,” he added.

In a di­rect clash with the NCP, which had last year re­jected the Cen­tre’s project of smart city, NMMC com­mis­sioner Tukaram Mundhe has said that the project is on his agenda and that all road­blocks will be re­moved to make Navi Mum­bai a smart city.

He has again placed the pro­posal be­fore a state gov­ern­ment steer­ing com­mit­tee which has asked him to get the gen­eral body ap­proval.

The NCP has said it is still op­posed to the project. The op­po­si­tion mean­while feels that it is too late now to rec­tify the tremen­dous loss to the city.

The Ganesh Naik led NCP had us­ing its ma­jor­ity, re­jected the pro­posal for the smart city project of the cen­tral gov­ern­ment last year stat­ing that the pro­posed spe­cial pur­pose ve­hi­cle (SPV) that will im­ple­ment the project will ren­der the elected cor­po­ra­tors of NMMC pow­er­less.

There had been a huge hue and cry over the de­ci­sion that had come af­ter the NCP had praised and par­tic­i­pated in it over months and the ad­min­is­tra­tion had spent crores of ru­pees tak­ing peo­ple’s sug­ges­tions for it.

The then mu­nic­i­pal com­mis­sioner Di­nesh Wagh­mare had ap­proached the chief min­is­ter, who gave the green signal for Navi Mum­bai’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the project. The city how­ever lost out as it did not meet the re­quire­ment of the NMMC gen­eral body ap­prov­ing it.

Mundhe said, “I had said at the end of the gen­eral body meet­ing re­cently that smart city is on my agenda. I want it and we will re­move all road­blocks for it.”

Mundhe said, “The SPV will not take away any­one’s rights and pow­ers. It has gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and also civic of­fice bear­ers as its mem­bers. An SPV is re­quired for im­ple­ment­ing a project of this mag­ni­tude. It en­sures com­ple­tion of the project in time bound pro­gramme.”

He added, “The project will be im­ple­mented based on the peo­ple’s sug­ges­tions and de­mands that we have re­ceived. It is not based on of­fi­cial whim. Peo­ple have stated their pri­or­i­ties and the top pri­or­i­ties will be taken up.”